France

PARIS (Reuters) - Being overweight is a major risk for people infected with the new coronavirus and the United States is particularly vulnerable because of high obesity levels there, France’s chief epidemiologist said on Wednesday.

Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, who heads the scientific council that advises the government on the epidemic, said as many as 17 million of France’s 67 million citizens were seriously at risk from the coronavirus because of age, pre-existing illness or obesity.

PARIS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday, that European countries must rise to meet the challenge of the current exceptional climate, after an initial failure at the Eurogroup meeting to agree on funding measures.

“Along with (German finance minister) @OlafScholz, we call on all European states to be up to the challenge posed by these exceptional times so that we can arrive at reaching an ambitious agreement,” Le Maire wrote on Twitter.

PARIS, April 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The worldwide number of fatalities from the novel coronavirus rose to 80,142 on late Tuesday, according to a tally compiled from official sources.

More than 1,397,180 declared cases have been registered in 192 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China in December. Of these cases, at least 257,100 are now considered recovered.

The tallies, using data collected from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

PARIS, April 7 (Xinhua) -- As France entered its fourth week of lockdown, the coronavirus epidemic still hit hard, claiming on Tuesday 1,417 more deaths in hospitals and nursing homes, making the combined fatalities at 10,328, a French health official said.

Data unveiled by General Director of Health Jerome Salomon showed a fresh daily record of deaths in hospital where 607 people have succumbed to COVID-19 on Tuesday, representing a daily increase of 9.4 percent to a cumulative total of 7,091, compared with a 10 percent rise registered on Monday.

PARIS (AP) — The high-speed train whooshing past historic World War I battle zones and through the chateau-speckled Loire Valley carried a delicate cargo: 20 critically ill COVID-19 patients and the machines helping keep them alive.

The TGV-turned-mobile-intensive-care-unit is just one piece of France’s nationwide mobilization of trains, helicopters, jets and even a warship, deployed to relieve congested hospitals and shuffle hundreds of patients and hundreds more medical personnel in and out of coronavirus hotspots.

5 April 2020; AFP: A Sudanese refugee went on a knife rampage in a town in southeastern France on Saturday, killing two people in what is being treated as a terrorist attack.

The attack in broad daylight, which President Emmanuel Macron called "an odious act", took place with the country on lockdown in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

LYON, France (Reuters) - A man armed with a knife attacked people out shopping in the southeastern French town of Romans-sur-Isère on Saturday, killing two and wounding four, the mayor said.

The town is currently under a coronavirus lockdown, although people are allowed out to buy essentials.

The attacks took place in the morning outside a bakery where customers were queuing, and at shops in the town center, according to Mayor Marie-Hélène Thoraval, who said the assailant had been arrested.

BRAZZAVILLE, March 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Former Republic of Congo president Jacques Joaquim Yhombi Opango died in France on Monday of the new coronavirus, his family said. He was 81.

Yhombi Opango, who led Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 until he was toppled in 1979, died at a Paris hospital of COVID-19, his son Jean-Jacques said.

Yhombi Opango had been ill before he contracted the virus, his son said.

Born in 1939 in Congo’s northern Cuvette region, Yhombi Opango was an army officer who rose to power after the assassination of president Marien Ngouabi.

PARIS, March 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France and several of its European allies have officially set up a new task force, called Takuba, made of special forces that will fight armed groups in the West African region of Sahel alongside the armies of Mali and Niger.

Paris; 29 March 2020 (UMM): Spanish Princess Maria Teresa of Bourbon-Parma has become the first victim of the COVID-19 in Paris. She was eighty-six years old.

According to Fox News, the 86-year-old was a cousin of Spain's King Felipe VI. Her brother Prince Sixto Enrique de Borbon, the Duke of Aranjuez, announced on Facebook that she died after contracting COVID-19.